Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Here are the Top 10 games of each year according to aggregate review scores from Gamerankings 20051. Call of Duty 22. Project Gotham Racing 33. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved4. Dead or Alive 45. Need For Speed Most Wanted (EA Canada)6. Condemned Criminal Origins7. Perfect Dark Zero8. Kameo: Elements of Power9. Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game Of The Movie10. NBA 2K6 20061. Gears of War2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion3. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter4. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas5. Burnout Revenge6. Viva Pinata7. Fight Night Round 38. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent9. Dead Rising10. F.E.A.R. 20071. The Orange Box2. Bioshock3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare4. Halo 35. Guitar Hero 26. Rock Band7. Mass Effect8. Forza Motorsport 29. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night10. Virtua Fighter 5 Online 20081. Grand Theft Auto 42. Gears of War 23. Fallout 34. Rockband 25. Braid6. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 27. Left 4 Dead8. Dead Space9. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix10. NHL 09 20091. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 22. Street Fighter 43. Batman: Arkham Asylum4. Forza Motorsport 35. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City6. Assassin's Creed 27. The Beatles: Rock Band(8 and 9 are the individual episodes so here's other games)8. Peggle9. Shadow Complex10. NHL 10 20101. Mass Effect 22. Red Dead Redemption3. Rock Band 34. Halo: Reach5. Super Street Fighter IV6. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX7. Limbo8. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood9. Super Meat Boy10. Bayonetta 20111. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim2. Portal 23. Batman: Arkham City4. Gears of War 35. Forza Motorsport 46. FIFA Soccer 127. Deus Ex: Human Revolution8. Dead Space 29. Rayman Origins10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 20121. Mass Effect 32. Trials Evolution3. Mark of the Ninja4. FIFA Soccer 135. Borderlands 26. Far Cry 37. Dishonored8. Fez9. XCOM: Enemy Unknown10. The Walking Dead 20131. Grand Theft Auto V2. Bioshock Infinite3. Rayman Legends4. Tomb Raider5. Rocksmith 20146. Diablo 37. DmC: Devil May Cry8. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons9. Battleblock Theater10. Skylanders Swap Force (hahahaha) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew POE! Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 I have a few to pimp: Eternal Sonata - JRPG about the dream world created by Frederic Chopin as he lies on his deathbed. Some of the cutscenes are VERY long (like half an hour or more long), but the battle system, the overall story, and the soundtrack make this great. Better than some Tales games. The Darkness - Has Mike Patton. Honestly, what else do you need? A very competent FPS with lots of interesting sections although the gameplay isn't that sharp at times. Prey - Although the backgrounds in game sorta blur, this is a great FPS from the early days of the 360. Dark Sector - It looks like Resident Evil 4, it feels like Resident Evil 4, but it's not. Charlie Murder - Scott Pilgrim style beat 'em up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Fresh Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Oh boy, 2005 was fucking ROUGH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 Yeah, this was a generation of thoroughly brutal launches. Looking back at the DS launch was pretty hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 I'll start with these three: Batman: Arkham Asylum: I’d say all were pleasantly surprised to find out how superb this game was when it was released in 2009. The portrayal of the characters including the voices of the beloved Batman: The Animated Series returning: Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Mark Hamill as The Joker and Arlene Sorkin as Harley Quinn, the perfect mix between Batman's combat/stealth/detective skills, the service paid to fans from the character biographies/trophies which can be collected, the game’s atmosphere and the challenge mode testing combat and predator skills. Batman: Arkham City: The main story sees Batman in Arkham City, a big section of a rundown area of Gotham City turned into an open air prison. The best thing about Batman: Arkham City is the ability to play as Batman, Nightwing, Robin (Tim Drake) and Catwoman in challenge mode. All four play differently. A terrific game. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: I bought a new Xbox 360 Elite in September 2009 trading in my Wii for one and bought this game a week after Christmas 2009. This is the best FPS I’ve ever played for a variety of reasons. The single player campaign is great with the sniper stealth mission the highlight. Once the single player campaign’s finished, Arcade mode is unlocked. Arcade mode lets the player replay a level from the single player campaign which the player tries to complete by high a score as possible before the time limit. If the time limit ends, the score is kept but the lives you carry won’t be added to the final score (each is worth a crucial thousand points) and there’s no time bonus because you ran out of time. Both of which means you want to complete the level before time expires. This mode can be frustrating but you return to it and try for the new high score. Offline deathmatches with my Dad were fun as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Domino_Not_Deuce Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Shadow Complex - Just about perfect. The feeling of getting stronger and stronger with each update is just as good here as it is in any other great "MetroidVania" Really well designed map with lots of secrets and plenty of replay value. The best XBLA game IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glfpunk Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 I loved me some Gears. I know universally it doesn't get much hype and recognition among similar games regardless of console but Gears 2 is still one of my favorite games. I can't even pinpoint why I enjoyed it so much but I can still pick it up and have a ton of fun unlike a lot of games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 I honestly am not sure if there is anything for me that is going to top Red Dead Redemption this generation. It is hands down one of my favorite gaming experiences of any generation, and the sad part is I have yet to finish it. I probably should remedy that over the three day weekend. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Borderlands not being higher on the 2009 list makes me sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Every so often, i think about replaying RDR. Id also be curious to see the DVDVR GTA crew playing RDR multiplayer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 I'm about to say a bunch of words about Gears of War, so if you somehow haven't played it, go play it to completion and then come back for a debriefing. Here's why Gears of War is the Game of the Generation. Everything is Gears of War now. A majority of the action games that will be praised in these threads is just goddamn Gears of War with few variants. -Uncharted is Gears of War with platforming.-Mass Effect is Gears of War with RPG elements.-Batman is Gears of War with Metroid Prime traversal and admittedly fantastic, deep melee. -Grand Theft Auto IV/V is Gears of War with GTA Driving and minigames. -Red Dead Redemption is Gears of War with the wilderness. -Spec Ops is Gears of War with Aggressive Subversion. (we will talk about Spec Ops in a few days. Spec Ops is Captial I Important in ways that are not really easily evident and I need to refresh myself so I can explain it.) -The Last of Us is Gears of War that thinks it's Spec Ops. So here's what I mean with "is Gears of War." I don't just mean "cover shooting." The actually impressive thing about Gears of War is threefold. creating level design that strains the ability to override it through idiosyncratic art design and clear pathing, creating a narrative delivery system that allows developers to explore the boundaries between cut scene and gameplay while using characters that aren't just faceless drones you drive (the FPS Story issue), and inspiring people to make passive game play elements active (reloading, recovering health). Gears of War kicked the game industry's ass so severely that Hironobu Sakaguchi- Mr. Final Fantasy- made Lost Odyssey, an RPG with Gears of War's sensibilities. Did you catch that? A US developer so thoroughly upset the understanding of how gameplay and storytelling (NOT THE STORY, JUST THE TELLING.) interact that a luminary of the Japanese game indsutry, an industry so resistant to change that it was essentially irrelevant all generation long, went "HOLY SHIT" and made an entire epic, impossible work inspired by it. That is influential. Everything about the actual design of Gears of War is impeccable. All of the guns feel dangerous. Level layouts are perfected laser beams. The introduction of new, confounding enemies scales like any 16-Bit Action Game you love so much that you shake when you think about playing it. Gears of War also happens to be Metallica, both in "everything is just this right now" and 1/2/3 = Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets/And Justice For All. 1 is razor sharp simplicity and elegance. 2 is a doubling down of everything that made 1 cut so deep with new nuances that somehow blow you away even harder (Horde Mode). 3 is a further elaboration that, while excessively well made, is slightly divisive among the people that just like cutting themselves all the time (story mode that is actually good, super complicated Horde Mode). Unfortunately, this analogy fails a little bit, because it implies that Judgment is The Black Album. Untrue. Judgment is St. Anger. Don't touch Judgment for too long, you might get sick. So other people are going to say other games are the best game of the generation, or that this is their favorite game of the generation (or say best and mean favorite). That's perfectly alright! I mean, my favorite game of the generation is probably Burnout Paradise. Empirically, the answer is probably Gears of War*. *i would accept COD4 as an answer because of its bubble-creating sales and revival/corruption of FPS multiplayer** **i would also accept assassin's creed 2 as an answer because it's basically the spiritual successor to Mario 64 without being horrible broken dogshit like the first AC.*** ***i would also accept the orange box because it has half life 2 in it and half life 2 is a miracle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glfpunk Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 I definitely see your point in that. I love that series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew POE! Posted May 25, 2014 Share Posted May 25, 2014 Gears of War is indeed one of the most perfect games from this past gen. But like a lot of games this past gen, its sequel just wasn't that great and was a bit of a letdown. Gears of War 3 I thought was incredible though. I hope that if there is a Gears of War Xbox One game (being developed by Black Tusk, although they really should have been allowed to work on their own IP), I hope they do what was done with Infamous: Second Son and introduce a new set of characters dealing with the same threat as the past iterations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted May 25, 2014 Author Share Posted May 25, 2014 I dunno, man. If I could vote for GoW2's Horde Mode as a game by itself isolated from the single player it'd be at the top of my list. The peak of my 360 ownership was clearing Horde Mode with my best friends on Fountain. I mean, I get 2 having a worse single player campaign and less interesting/more balanced competitive multiplayer, but uuuuugh horde moooooode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew POE! Posted May 25, 2014 Share Posted May 25, 2014 I dunno, man. If I could vote for GoW2's Horde Mode as a game by itself isolated from the single player it'd be at the top of my list. The peak of my 360 ownership was clearing Horde Mode with my best friends on Fountain. I mean, I get 2 having a worse single player campaign and less interesting/more balanced competitive multiplayer, but uuuuugh horde moooooode. I almost get the sense from having played Gears 2 that they built multiplayer first and didn't have any idea what to do for the campaign until the last minute. Gears 3 had a more solid campaign and better multiplayer (although not as good as Gears 2's). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Assassins Creed II (Xbox 360): After debating whether to buy this for a while, my sister bought it for me as my Easter 2011 present and I’m glad she did. The game initially starts slow but then picks up. The best thing about the game is the free running ability. Last I played, I was halfway through it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 EA Sports MMA (Xbox 360): Terrific first attempt by EA with very little improvements needed for a sequel (more game modes) which will now be happening as they have the UFC rights with THQ going under. I’m sure I’ll be the highest vote for it, possibly the only one as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I'm about to say a bunch of words about Gears of War, so if you somehow haven't played it, go play it to completion and then come back for a debriefing. Here's why Gears of War is the Game of the Generation. Everything is Gears of War now. A majority of the action games that will be praised in these threads is just goddamn Gears of War with few variants. -Uncharted is Gears of War with platforming. -Mass Effect is Gears of War with RPG elements. -Batman is Gears of War with Metroid Prime traversal and admittedly fantastic, deep melee. -Grand Theft Auto IV/V is Gears of War with GTA Driving and minigames. -Red Dead Redemption is Gears of War with the wilderness. -Spec Ops is Gears of War with Aggressive Subversion. (we will talk about Spec Ops in a few days. Spec Ops is Captial I Important in ways that are not really easily evident and I need to refresh myself so I can explain it.) -The Last of Us is Gears of War that thinks it's Spec Ops. So here's what I mean with "is Gears of War." I don't just mean "cover shooting." The actually impressive thing about Gears of War is threefold. creating level design that strains the ability to override it through idiosyncratic art design and clear pathing, creating a narrative delivery system that allows developers to explore the boundaries between cut scene and gameplay while using characters that aren't just faceless drones you drive (the FPS Story issue), and inspiring people to make passive game play elements active (reloading, recovering health). Gears of War kicked the game industry's ass so severely that Hironobu Sakaguchi- Mr. Final Fantasy- made Lost Odyssey, an RPG with Gears of War's sensibilities. Did you catch that? A US developer so thoroughly upset the understanding of how gameplay and storytelling (NOT THE STORY, JUST THE TELLING.) interact that a luminary of the Japanese game indsutry, an industry so resistant to change that it was essentially irrelevant all generation long, went "HOLY SHIT" and made an entire epic, impossible work inspired by it. That is influential. Everything about the actual design of Gears of War is impeccable. All of the guns feel dangerous. Level layouts are perfected laser beams. The introduction of new, confounding enemies scales like any 16-Bit Action Game you love so much that you shake when you think about playing it. Gears of War also happens to be Metallica, both in "everything is just this right now" and 1/2/3 = Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets/And Justice For All. 1 is razor sharp simplicity and elegance. 2 is a doubling down of everything that made 1 cut so deep with new nuances that somehow blow you away even harder (Horde Mode). 3 is a further elaboration that, while excessively well made, is slightly divisive among the people that just like cutting themselves all the time (story mode that is actually good, super complicated Horde Mode). Unfortunately, this analogy fails a little bit, because it implies that Judgment is The Black Album. Untrue. Judgment is St. Anger. Don't touch Judgment for too long, you might get sick. So other people are going to say other games are the best game of the generation, or that this is their favorite game of the generation (or say best and mean favorite). That's perfectly alright! I mean, my favorite game of the generation is probably Burnout Paradise. Empirically, the answer is probably Gears of War*. *i would accept COD4 as an answer because of its bubble-creating sales and revival/corruption of FPS multiplayer** **i would also accept assassin's creed 2 as an answer because it's basically the spiritual successor to Mario 64 without being horrible broken dogshit like the first AC.*** ***i would also accept the orange box because it he as half life 2 in it and half life 2 is a miracle. This is a very good explanation of why a game I don't really like should be ranked over a lot of games I really like. I never thought about how much Gears of Wars was basically the egg all of the generation's chickens hatched from, but that is a very valid point. I remember when it first came out and I liked it, but it felt like the beta version of things to come. The action didn't really seem to flow, the story line seemed a little goofy, and the characters were basically every single cliche of the mid 2000s. I think the Gears series is above average, but nothing special though I can see why you would rank it so highly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 I'm about to say a bunch of words about Gears of War, so if you somehow haven't played it, go play it to completion and then come back for a debriefing. Here's why Gears of War is the Game of the Generation. Everything is Gears of War now. A majority of the action games that will be praised in these threads is just goddamn Gears of War with few variants. -Uncharted is Gears of War with platforming. -Mass Effect is Gears of War with RPG elements. -Batman is Gears of War with Metroid Prime traversal and admittedly fantastic, deep melee. -Grand Theft Auto IV/V is Gears of War with GTA Driving and minigames. -Red Dead Redemption is Gears of War with the wilderness. -Spec Ops is Gears of War with Aggressive Subversion. (we will talk about Spec Ops in a few days. Spec Ops is Captial I Important in ways that are not really easily evident and I need to refresh myself so I can explain it.) -The Last of Us is Gears of War that thinks it's Spec Ops. So here's what I mean with "is Gears of War." I don't just mean "cover shooting." The actually impressive thing about Gears of War is threefold. creating level design that strains the ability to override it through idiosyncratic art design and clear pathing, creating a narrative delivery system that allows developers to explore the boundaries between cut scene and gameplay while using characters that aren't just faceless drones you drive (the FPS Story issue), and inspiring people to make passive game play elements active (reloading, recovering health). Gears of War kicked the game industry's ass so severely that Hironobu Sakaguchi- Mr. Final Fantasy- made Lost Odyssey, an RPG with Gears of War's sensibilities. Did you catch that? A US developer so thoroughly upset the understanding of how gameplay and storytelling (NOT THE STORY, JUST THE TELLING.) interact that a luminary of the Japanese game indsutry, an industry so resistant to change that it was essentially irrelevant all generation long, went "HOLY SHIT" and made an entire epic, impossible work inspired by it. That is influential. Everything about the actual design of Gears of War is impeccable. All of the guns feel dangerous. Level layouts are perfected laser beams. The introduction of new, confounding enemies scales like any 16-Bit Action Game you love so much that you shake when you think about playing it. Gears of War also happens to be Metallica, both in "everything is just this right now" and 1/2/3 = Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets/And Justice For All. 1 is razor sharp simplicity and elegance. 2 is a doubling down of everything that made 1 cut so deep with new nuances that somehow blow you away even harder (Horde Mode). 3 is a further elaboration that, while excessively well made, is slightly divisive among the people that just like cutting themselves all the time (story mode that is actually good, super complicated Horde Mode). Unfortunately, this analogy fails a little bit, because it implies that Judgment is The Black Album. Untrue. Judgment is St. Anger. Don't touch Judgment for too long, you might get sick. So other people are going to say other games are the best game of the generation, or that this is their favorite game of the generation (or say best and mean favorite). That's perfectly alright! I mean, my favorite game of the generation is probably Burnout Paradise. Empirically, the answer is probably Gears of War*. *i would accept COD4 as an answer because of its bubble-creating sales and revival/corruption of FPS multiplayer** **i would also accept assassin's creed 2 as an answer because it's basically the spiritual successor to Mario 64 without being horrible broken dogshit like the first AC.*** ***i would also accept the orange box because it he as half life 2 in it and half life 2 is a miracle. This is a very good explanation of why a game I don't really like should be ranked over a lot of games I really like. I never thought about how much Gears of Wars was basically the egg all of the generation's chickens hatched from, but that is a very valid point. I remember when it first came out and I liked it, but it felt like the beta version of things to come. The action didn't really seem to flow, the story line seemed a little goofy, and the characters were basically every single cliche of the mid 2000s. I think the Gears series is above average, but nothing special though I can see why you would rank it so highly. What's regarded as the best Gears of War? I've never played on before. I already knew the name and BL88 has helped tell me what the game does. supremebve brings up a good point about innovation. Batman: Arkham Asylum's Freeflow combat system has to be an example of that. It's one of the best systems of any type I've played. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 It really depends what you're in it for. I'd say the only one you need to play is the first one, as like a "see where all of this started" thought experiment. I like 2 the best, but I had a dozen people I was playing that game with (both competitively and in Horde Mode) and that's a big reason why. If you can get four of your friends in on going back/trying it out, by all means go for 2 because Horde Mode is a revelation. If not, just 1 is fine. I think you can get a compilation that's the first two games and DLC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salads Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Love to read gamegushing so the GoW endorsement was a treat to read (though a little Tim Rogers-ey at points). I always endorse platform agnosticism and usually make the point that the only real outcome of my aversion to Microsoft is the tragic absence of Gears of War and Cave STGs in my life. I won't be saying that any more as this thread has prodded my memory into recalling that the original game was also released on PC. So off I go to enter the murky world of PC gaming to spend hours trying to research how to get it to run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimoDANK Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 That is a great write-up on Gears. It would be in my top 5 for sure. My #1 has to be Bioshock. The world, the villian, the twist. No game this generation made the impact on me that Bioshock did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 Hey! This is still happening! I want to bump with something more relevant than just "please don't forget" so here is something that a very clever friend of mine wrote about the game at the top of my ballot, Burnout Paradise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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